through which, like an electric current, Oriental thought
could run to the West and Western thought returns to the
East.”
Early Indian nationalism was a fusion of revolutionary
anti-colonialism with religious symbols drawn from the
tantras – in particular the bloodthirsty image of the great
black Mother Goddess Kali – who became a symbol of the
newly imagined Motherland itself in its struggle to violently
purge itself of the demonic curse of white English goats or
‘Feringhees’. Hence the early language of Indian
nationalism:
“Rise up, oh sons of India, arm yourself with bombs,
dispatch the white Asuras to Vama’s abode. Invoke the
Mother Kali. What does the Mother want? ... A fowl or
sheep or buffalo? The Mother is thirsting after the blood of
the Feringhees. Chant this verse whilst slaying the
Feringhee white goats: with the close of a long era, the
Feringhee empire draws to an end, for behold – Kali rises
in the East.” Bengali newspaper 1905
Bipanchandra Pal
For the colonizers too, Kali was the very image of all that
was terrifying, threatening, perverse, and abhorrent in the
underbelly of Indian culture – uniting obscene idolatry and
sexual license with organized political subversion and
criminal violence of all sorts.